Learning and Development: How Australia's Largest Retailer Brings Its Businesses Together

How Coles Myer, along with its partner DeakinPrime, built programs for a cross-section of Coles Myer learners from all brands supporting the business strategy to maximize opportunities for employee interactions across brands.

Coles Myer is the largest retailer in Australia, employing 185,000 people and representing well-known brands such as Target, K-Mart, Officeworks, Coles and Coles Online. Core Learning and Development programs for middle and senior managers at Coles Myer are managed by DeakinPrime, the business arm of Deakin University, a premier Australian University. Like most business leaders, executives at Coles Myer believed there could be great value in having people share ideas, knowledge and insights across brands. But how could they jumpstart a process to get people reaching out to one another across these very distinct businesses? The answer was clearly Learning and Development connecting with business strategy.

In addition, presenters Liz Vinning, Director, Coles Myer-Deakin Alliance, and Shirley Johns, Leadership Programs Manager, Coles Myer Limited, will describe a unique program that identifies high potential women leaders from each brand who participate in team-based, action learning programs. They will also discuss the current state of corporate learning in Australia and offer thoughts on how to best reach learners who work “down under”.

• Discovering how to harness the power of learning to break down the silos between businesses to increase sharing of knowledge and insights.
• Learning how to increase diversity within the leadership pipeline through a cross-brand action learning program for women
• Becoming aware of what is different and distinct about the Australian learning environment